Last Friday we left for a week-long trip to Texas. We drove Friday night and all of Saturday. Not straight through, mind you. We stopped in Cape Girardeau, Missouri on Friday and made it to Beaumont, Texas last night. So today — Easter Sunday — was our first day birding the Texas coast. And though today was our biggest day ever for birds, it may have been the worst day ever, too.

Starting with the worst, the hotel was a dump. It was old and run down and in the middle of an industrial area right next to the highway. I won’t tell you its name, but let’s just say it was a La Quinta Inn. We knew we were here to bird, so we got over that pretty quick. (Right.) So this morning we headed for the coast down Route 124 toward Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge. It wasn’t long before we saw some CATTLE EGRETS in a field along the side of the road. And the a BLACK VULTURE flying above us. Two lifers from the get-go. Then we hit it big.

We pulled off the road next to a small creek. We got out the scope, took a gander, and saw a pile of new birds:

BOAT-TAILED GRACKLE
GREAT-TAILED GRACKLE
GLOSSY IBIS
COMMON MOORHEN
BLACK-NECKED STILT
FULVOUS WHISTLING-DUCK
ROSEATE SPOONBILL
BARN SWALLOW
SNOWY EGRET
EASTERN KINGBIRD
GREEN HERON

Pole was freaking out a little because there were so many unfamiliar birds, many of them lifers. We were also using a new field guide — the National Geographic — because we needed to have all the Texas specialties, something our Peterson doesn’t cover. We know our way around the Peterson, so finding birds in the Geo was frustrating. And on top of that, some crazy crop-dusting plane starting buzzing about 60 feet over our heads, scaring off the birds. Real overload. Once we got all these water birds, we continued south and saw three more along the road: a SCISSOR-TAILED FLYCATCHER, a LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE, and some NORTHERN MOCKINGBIRDS. So after about 15 minutes of birding, we ended up with 16 birds for Little Year, 8 of them lifers. Whew.

As we entered Anahuac, we got out to join some other birders to scope a big, dry marsh. Lot of gulls and shorebirds including:

LAUGHING GULL
GULL-BILLED TERN
WHITE IBIS
WILLET
WHIMBREL
SEMIPALMATED PLOVER
LESSER YELLOWLEGS

After checking the refuge headquarters for maps, etc., we moved on through he refuge. We saw some NEOTROPIC CORMORANTS and a GREAT EGRET. Also a raccoon shuffling around in the grass. The most beautiful bird for me, though, was a PURPLE GALLINULE that was slowly prancing about 20 feet away. And we finally saw an AMERICAN BITTERN, a bird we’d been wanting for a long time. It was out in the open, and — as usual — it kept up its camouflage behavior because it’s too birdbrained to know it was out in the open. We had a nice long look at it until some photographer (another birdbrain) scared it away. Pole also got a quick glimpse of an alligator. Continuing our Quest, we spotted:

FORSTER’S TERN
LITTLE BLUE HERON
NORTHERN ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOW
PALM WARBLER
YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER
SEASIDE SPARROW
COMMON TERN
LONG-BILLED DOWITCHER

We spent a couple of hours in Anahuac, and when we left, we decided to make a quick stop to nearby High Island, one of the most celebrated birding spots in Texas.

High Island isn’t really an island, but you do have to cross this freaky bridge to get there. It’s short, but its arch is very high, going up at an angle that seemed about 40 degrees, but was probably only 30. Pole hates bridges, and so she was gripping onto the car’s door strap for dear life. Once we were down to earth, we were surprised on how ugly the island was. Texas in a nutshell: not a nice place, but it’s where the birds are. We headed to Boy Scout Woods, one of the sites managed by the Houston Audubon Society, hoping we could just make a quick stop.

As we were leaving the car, Pole asked whether we should put on bug spray. I thought about it and said no. She agreed. The thing is, we hate putting stinky goop on our bodies. It really cramps our style. We walked into the woods and entered a beautifully maintained, shady sanctuary. There were lots of birders wandering around, some watching birds from the special viewing bleachers. As soon as we got there, a woman pointed out a BLUE-HEADED VIREO. She then asked if we wanted to see a Painted Bunting, and we said sure.

The bunting was actually in someone’s yard that abutted the refuge, and we had to walk through a maze of paths to get there. Our guide was dressed in the ugly uniform birders often wear: formless floppy hat, tan safari shirt, and pants you can covert to shorts with a zipper. And in this case, the seat of her pants were covered with berry stains from sitting on the bleachers. (There but for the grace of God . . .) Anyway, she brought us to the place, and as soon as we stepped into the bushes to get a better view, the vermin came. It was the worst mosquito attack I’ve ever experience in my life. I was slapping them off Pole’s back nonstop, and when I looked at my right ankle, there were about eight of them in the same spot. I killed them all with one whack. I then smashed one on my left ankle, and watched as a drop of blood rolled into my sock.

I wanted to get the hell out of there, but it’s funny, I needed to wait for Pole to say something. I just didn’t feel I had the right to quit. Maybe it was some macho thing. Or maybe I’m just nuts. “These bugs are too much,” she finally told the woman. “We’ll come back tomorrow with bug spray.” Screw the bunting — we got out of there fast. For a while, it looked like we might get lost and never find our way back to the car, but guided by Pole, we escaped. We dashed into the car and killed the few bugs that made it inside with us. Then it was my turn to freak out. I just stared into space for about a minute, panting. Pole said she never saw me look so crazy. But, man alive, those frigging mosquitoes were horrible. We drove off the island, got something to eat, settled back into La Shithole Inn, showered, and collapsed.

So a very good day and a very bad day. The total count was 36 Little Year birds, 20 lifers each. And did I mention the third-degree sunburn?